Prayer in Islam – Establish Salah Properly

It's an Hamdallah who want to stay in who want to stop Pharaoh, but I will be live in Cerulean fusina Woman sejati Molina, then yeah, the last follow up, fella mobila comingled will follow her. Watch her do Hola Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Sharika What should I do and number Hamedan I will do for a solo. Indeed all praises due to Allah, we praise Him we seek His help and we seek His guidance.

Whomsoever Allah guides, none can miss guide and whomsoever Allah leaves a straight line can guide. I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah alone without any partners. And I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is His servant and Messenger.

So, sisters, today, we're going to be looking at

our salah, we're going to be focusing on the salah. As you might remember from my last talk, one of the things that I mentioned is one of the key ways of staying away from temptation and staying on the straight path is guiding is guarding ourselves from guarding certain things. So first thing that I mentioned was guarding the salah. Allah Subhana Allah tells us in the Quran, the purpose of our creation, he says what ma halacha told Jinnah will insert in earlier I don't, that I did not create human beings nor the jinn, who are other beings that Allah has created, except to worship me. So this is the purpose of our creation. So when Allah Subhana Allah says in the Quran, in any and

Allahu La ilaha illa Bodine, welcome is solid Al is live victory. Indeed I am Allah, there is no deity, there's nothing worthy of worship except to me. So established prayer for my remembrance, he is calling us to do the exact thing for which he created us. So this is what the Salah is, this is the importance of the Salah, it is our connection with the divine, it's our connection with Allah. We are blessed in that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us the way in which to connect with our Creator directly. Right. So when you look at the Catholic tradition, for example, you see that people tend to not connect with God directly. They have to go through some intermediary, they

have to go through some saints have to go through Mary or Jesus. Right? They can't contact there are lots of Hamdallah direct directly.

But this is the exact thing that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was sent to remove from the hearts of human beings, that we don't need anyone in between us and God, we don't need to confess our sins, you know, to a priest. We don't even need to confess our sins to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, because the one who has the ability to forgive us has that ability.

Directly. He doesn't need anyone in between. And in fact, he is angered when we call on other people besides him, saying that, you know, they are just intermediaries. And this is exactly what the

what the maastrichtian and Maccha used to say. They believed in Allah. Right? They said, Yes, we know that there's Allah, the Creator, the Ultimate Creator of the heavens and the earth. But we just worship these idols because they help us to become closer to God. They will intercede for us.

So we are blessed that Allah subhanaw taala gave us this salah, this way of praying, which allows us to access him directly. It's our telephone call with him every single day, five times a day, directly without anyone translating or, you know, being in between.

So it's our connection with Allah. In fact, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, even before he became a prophet, he was, you know, up to the age of 14, he never worshipped idols. And he was always calling on God. He was always calling on Allah and supplicating to Allah.

And he wanted to know, what is the best way to worship His Lord. And this is why you know, when Allah subhanaw taala revealed the Quran, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam loved the salah so much. In fact, he used to he used to say, jewellery Kurata Aney for Salah the coolness of my eyes was getting has been given to Me in the prayer. So anytime he wanted to anytime he had something that he was worried about anytime he had a difficulty, even in the time he had

Some good news. The thing he wanted to do was engaged with Allah. This is the kind of position that Salah had in his life. We know that.

Initially, Allah subhanaw taala gave the Prophet 50 Press for us to pray 50 prayers on the night when the prophets of Allah when Selim ascended to the heavens, the sloth and Miraj, when he reached the highest heaven, a lot of 100, Allah directly, gave him for his nation 50 prayers that they should pray, and we know that every time he came down, and he was coming back down, he would meet the Prophet Moses Alehissalaam peace be upon him. And the Prophet Moses kept saying to him, how many prayers were you given? And he said, 50 prayers. And the Prophet Moses said, no, no, your people will never be able to do that. But he knew people so and he would say to the Prophet, I know the

nature of human beings. And let me tell you, people would never be able to do 50 prayers. Go back and ask Allah to reduce the number. And we know that the prophets of Allah wa salam kept going back. And every time he came back down, Musa Annie Salam said to him, though, there's still too much, that's still too much, until eventually, Allah had reduced the number of prayers to five. Okay, and then that was it. And Allah subhana, Allah said,

they will pray five, but I will give them the reward of 50. Okay, Allah, so already Allah subhanaw taala reduced the number of prayers.

And my sisters when we, when we look at this,

we must realize that it's not that Allah subhanaw taala needs our prayers. Allah the Creator, He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anything from us. Yeah, as in the Hadith, in the famous Hadith, ALLAH SubhanA. Allah says that if all of you were together, right, and to be

to be as good as the best person amongst you, that would not increase Allah's kingdom.

One little bit, wouldn't increase Allah's kingdom. And if all of us were to gather and become the worst, like the worst soul amongst us, then that would not decrease Allah's kingdom. Right? It is for our own good, it's for us that we need to pray, it's for us and our own peace of mind, our own salvation that we need to pray.

And this salah, okay, that we've, we've gotten so used to

is so important that there is that even at times of war, when people are in the middle of war, this the obligation of Salah doesn't, isn't lifted. That's amazing, isn't it? Subhanallah when you study the effect of Salah, you find that even in time at times of war, even on the front line,

the the soldiers that they are told to take shifts, you know, so half of them pray while the other half fight and the other half pray while the other half fight SubhanAllah. That just shows you how important the status of Salah is in Allah's eyes, even when a person is ill. In fact, apart from menstruation, there is really no excuse for a person not to pray. Even if a person can't pray standing, he can pray sitting. If a person can't pray sitting, they're told, you can pray lying down. Yeah, by just, you know, a shout out just making indications. Even if a person

has lost the use of all of their limbs, and only the eyes move.

They can pray with the eyes panela just by blinking and by imagining and by doing the postures in that way and saying the words or thinking the words. So it's like you know Subhanallah there is no situation in which a Salah is not still obligatory upon the human being.

So what has been mentioned in the Quran about 500 times. This really shows you the importance of this pillar of Islam. The first thing we will be asked about on the Day of Judgment is the Salah, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the first thing that the servant of Allah subhana wa that Allah will be called to account for on the Day of Judgment is their prayer.

If it was good, then the person's deeds will also be good. And if it was bad, the person's deed deeds will have been bad.

On his deathbed, the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, the thing that he kept repeating was a solar solar, the prayer the prayer thing that he was most concerned about the thing that he exhorted us to the most. Don't leave the prayer

In fact, he said that between a person and ship and Coover so between the person and polytheism and disbelief is the prayer

to the extent that some of the Sahaba when they when there was a person who passed away, and they were not somebody who prayed, they would not pray this collateral janazah over that person.

They would not consider that person to be a Muslim. I really want to bring home to you, you know, the importance of this pillar of Islam. Okay, as soon as a person enters Islam, the salah becomes obligatory on them, as as much as they can do it. You know, they don't know Arabic, they don't know the actions. They just do some of God do some vicar. They can do the postures. But as soon as they become Muslim, this prayer becomes obligatory.

And the salah is the last thing that will be raised from the Muslims.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that Islam will disintegrate piece by piece. As soon as one part goes, people will cling to the next part. And he said, the first thing to go will be fair judgement, meaning justice. And the last of them is a Salah.

So really, it is the idea. It's like the defining characteristic of the Muslims. So what are the benefits of the Salah for us? And this is a refresher for us, sometimes we, we forget Subhanallah I was reading in one book, one of the scholars said that the reason why Allah Subhana Allah sent food down onto this earth, okay, was so that human beings would have enough sustenance, to nourish themselves, to be able to pray to be able to establish the prayer. This is there also any reason for Allah subhanaw taala sending food down, because as we said, He created us to worship.

So when we're not fulfilling the purpose of our creation, it is us ourselves who suffer. It's ourselves who actually

feel the emptiness. Sometimes when you when you read about people who seem to have it, all right, they have fame, they have money, they have everything. In fact, they're, they're loved by people on this earth. And then you hear that, oh, they killed themselves, or, you know, they're depressed, they go to these clinics in order to cure the extreme depression, etc. Okay, you wonder what is it? That they're missing? Because they, they're living the dream, right? They're living the life that society tells all of us is the ultimate road to happiness. be famous, be rich, be beautiful.

What else do you want? Right? And yet they have a deep emptiness. And that emptiness is an emptiness that is that Allah Subhana Allah has decreed a person will have, if they do not have Allah in their lives.

There is an emptiness that will never be filled, except by worshipping Allah. Because that's a human instinct that we have.

So the salah protects our Islam. That's the first thing of benefit that the salah gives us. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said

that we've already mentioned this hadith, that what lies between a man and disbelief is the abandonment of prayer. So the prayer actually protects our core of our belief, right? So, you know, sometimes when somebody becomes Muslim, or they, they're coming closer to Islam, even if they were brought up as Muslims, we start emphasizing to them other aspects of Islam. So we might sit there talking to them about hijab, we might sit there and talk to them about some other aspect of Islam, interest or whatever. Now, what we're doing is we're emphasizing the wrong thing.

Because even I shattered the land when she described the way in which Islam was revealed. She said, initially, the verses that were revealed were all about a lot. They weren't about the punishment of the Hellfire, they are about paradise. They exhorted people to prayer. Then later on, Allah has revealed the verses that said, Do this and don't do this, right. Stop drinking alcohol. I mean, these things were actually legislated much later on. And she said, if Allah had told people right from the beginning to stop drinking alcohol stop fornicating then people would have said, we will never stop. We can never stop and we will never stop

So you see there is this third route there is this kind of order in which to develop the Muslim character. And the first thing we should be emphasizing whether it's without selves or family members, new Muslims is the prayer, not the hijab, not any other aspects of those things also are commands of Allah of course. But what we've done is we've flipped things upside down and started emphasizing those things. When really, once a person establishes the prayer, and they become closer to Allah, naturally, they will want to obey Allah and naturally they will start Inshallah, observing hijab you know, staying away from haram, etc. You see, so we should really be going for the most

important thing, which is the Salah, the salam makes us closer to Allah. Because as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, a servant is nearest to his Lord when he is in such that, right? So the nearest point at which we can be with God is when we're prostrating with our heads on the floor,

in complete in a complete state of humility.

Now, there's a difference between humility and who humiliation, sometimes people think humility is like, Oh, you're humiliated? No, no, those are two different words. Okay, humiliation means, you know, to debase yourself and to be to be lonely. Humility means to be humble. And the most humble you could be is literally to put yourself in your head, the kind of your, the crown of your of your body, right? The most noble part of your body, to put that on the floor, in humility, and in a humble state, in front of Allah, your Creator, the one who gave you life who gave you everything that you have, you know, every single thing on this earth was put into place, and even in this

universe was put into place, just so that we could have even something as simple as a glass of water.

When you look at when you read about the magneto sphere, right? This huge layer that protects the earth from the sun's rays, okay? The magnetosphere. What happens is that the sun's rays when they hit the Earth, if the magnetosphere wasn't there,

they would cause all of the water on Earth to evaporate.

You should look it up by the way, it's amazing. Just look it up on YouTube. Dr. Brian Cox, I think, and just type Magneto sphere, it's absolutely amazing. You realize that Allah loved you so much, and blessed you just to be able for you, for you to be able to have that glass of water. He needed to create, and he did create the magnetosphere, he hated this, he created that so many things just so that water would be available for us. All this he did for us.

Of course we want to worship him. Of course he deserves to be worshipped. It also exports our sins.

The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said if there was a river at your door, and any one of you took a bath five times a day, would there be any dirt left? No, it would not be any dirt left. And so he said, This is the example of the five prayers, a lot blots out evil deeds through those prayers. It gives us peace of mind. You know, anytime you want to, you want a sense of tranquility. I'm telling you, it doesn't matter how many problems you see you feel that you have. Make her make two units of prayer. Go down in such that and during that search that cry to Allah tell him even though he knows, tell him all of the problems, tell him how you feel from the bottom of your heart.

I guarantee that after that Allah will give you some peace of mind.

So the Salah is also a conversation between us and Allah, just one second.

It's also a conversation between us and Allah. As the prophets of Allah What if Salam told us that you know when we're even when we're doing our certain Fatiha, we say

hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen. And Allah says that he divided the prayer between himself and his servant, half of it is for him and half of it for is for his servant.

And so when we say Al hamdu, Lillahi Rabbil Alameen All Praise and thanks for you to Allah, Lord of all of existence.

That Allah says Allah actually replies to us when we say that in our salah.

And he says, My servant has praised me he acknowledges that. Then when we say our rough man, Rahim, Allah says, My servant has glorified me. Then when we say Malik, Yomi Deen, Master of the Day of Judgment. He says, My servant again has

horrified me.

When when we say You alone we worship yeah can I do what ya can assign you alone? Do we worship and You alone? Do we ask help?

Do we ask for help? Then Allah Subhana Allah says, This is between me and my servant, my servant will get what they seek what he seeks.

And then when we say, it did not set out that Mr. Team, guide us to the straight path Sirata Latina and underlay him, the way of those on whom you have got granted your grace, not the way of those who earned Your Anger more of those who went astray. And Allah says, This is for my servant, and my servant shall have what he asked for. So every time we are making that salah, and we're even just reciting Surah Fatiha Allah is replying to us. We are having an intimate conversation with our Lord.

The Salaat prevents us from evil deeds. So if a person for example is finding it hard to stay away from sins, stay away from temptations. The number one thing that they should focus on is their salah, Allah says in in the solida 10 her annual fascia you will mooncup that the salah prevents a person from fascia, which is like a shameless evil deeds and Moncure general evil deeds, it prevents you from doing those things. So even if you know somebody, for example, who is involved in sin, who is having relations outside of marriage, for example, involved in major sins like that, and they don't pray.

The first thing you should be emphasizing to them is not

you could if you have that relationship to encourage them not to have that you know if they've involved in fornication or adultery, but the main thing you should be focusing with them on with them is their relationship with Allah encouraging them to pray, because that in itself will prevent them from doing those other evil things. We're going to talk about

the levels of Salah okay, because we sometimes when we've been praying for a long time, we become a bit lazy becomes a little bit robotic, maybe. So we want to prevent that and we want to take a look at our Salah and kind of give it a bit of a an overhaul.

So I'm gonna give these this sheet out.

Let me give that to you.

Now, the great scholar had been looking at him he said, Rahim Allah that mankind with regards to Salah with regards to there is a five levels. Okay. He said the first level is the level of one who is negligent, neglectful, and rolls his soul.

He is the one who falls short, in performing ablution properly performing in other words, the widow performing the prayer upon its time and within its specified limits.

And also its pillars. So that's a very neglectful person, that's the first level. The second level is the one who guards his prayer upon the proper times within the specified limits, fulfills the essential pillars and performs his ablution with care. However,

his striving is wasted because constantly throughout his prayer, he's not thinking about the prayer. He's affected by the whisperings of Shavon and he's just not even thinking.

The third the one who God's his prayer, within specific specified limits, okay, fulfills the pillars and strives to avoid the whisperings of shaytan okay, but

he's so busy trying to fight off the thoughts that Chauvin gives him that, you know, he's, it's very difficult for him. And so, in a way he is engaged, not just in Salah he's also engaged in Jihad struggle, because he's really really sincerely trying hard.

The fourth is the one who stands for the prayer completes and perfects it.

And gives us it gives it its due rights, its essential pillars, performs it within the specified limits, and his heart becomes engrossed in safeguarding its rights and specified limits, so that nothing is wasted from it. His whole concern is directed towards his salah, its completion and its perfection, as it should be, his heart is immersed in the prayer and enslavement to his Lord. That's the fourth level. And the fifth level. The highest level, he said, is the one who stands for prayer,

just like the one in level four, but

he has such a connection with Allah that it is as if he has placed His heart in front of his Lord, the mighty and majestic looking towards him, with his heart with it and

anticipation, his heart is filled with love and his mind as if he sees and witnesses Allah. So he's just completely engrossed in thinking about Allah and His love for Allah.

The Whispering sports and ideas have vanished. And the coverings which are between him and his Lord are raised. What is between this person and others with respect to the prayer is superior and greater than what is between the heavens and the earth? This person is busy with his Lord and mighty and majestic delighted with him. So it'll say I mentioned these five levels. And we're going to, I've made my own kind of levels, okay, because I think probably most people in our times are between the first and third level, have we built them before then fifth are like Annaleigh. And sometimes, in our times, we're still struggling with just the first three levels. So what I want you to do now,

in the next, how many questions

I think in the next

four minutes really, really shouldn't take long. In the next four minutes, then I would like you to just quickly fill out this, this is a completely private questionnaire, by the way, just for you. It's just for you. So if you just quickly just circle or tick next to the answer that is closest to what where you are at, if you like, okay, because it might not be exactly where you are at. But the answer that is closest to where you are at in every single question. And then we will, we will look at the results in Sharla.

So I'm just going to give you four minutes, when I asked the sheriff

you know, sometimes Fajr time that person might switch that alarm off, they might find it really hard to wake up for budget. What should they do? He said, You need to just say to yourself, I am a servant of Allah, I am a slave of Allah, I don't have a choice. This is what Allah has commanded me to do. I have to obey Him.

Right? So it's not about whether it makes you feel good or not actually, that's not what it's really about. It's about obeying the command of the One who created you and gave you everything that you have.

So you need to tell that to yourself. He has given you everything he has given you everything without you even asking for it.

So for you to neglect this basic command, okay is a huge injustice.

You were created to worship Allah, as he has commanded and Salah is absolutely essential to your being a Muslim.

Okay, so you really need to, to realize that, but some of the scholars would even regard you as having gone outside of the folder.

If you're really neglecting prayer to that extent, you're purposefully missing prayers.

So really, sometimes, you know, we need to have that we need to be afraid. Of course we need to Allah subhanaw taala tells us about the punishments as well. It's not just about sugarcoating everything is why I'm mentioning it to you in that way. Realize that Allah loves his servants to repent to Him and turn to him. So no matter how many sins you've done, even if you've been extremely neglectful of the prayer, there's always hope for you. Okay, make a new commitment to Allah from now from today.

And look at the areas of your life that are probably suffering as a result of your neglect of Allah's rights. A person who can't take care of the rights of Allah cannot really take care of anyone's rights.

This is what I said to a sister once you came in, she said, you know, she was considering marrying somebody. And he didn't pray but he was a very good man but he just didn't pray. I said how can he be a good man? If he doesn't establish the prep?

His if he can't fulfill the rights of a lot? How will he really when when things get tough? How Why would he fulfill your rights?

So take a fresh look at your life. Are you for example in the right sort of job? Are you in the right sort of company? Are your friends encouraging you or discouraging you from praying? It's really important to be around people who pray around people who take Allah seriously. Did you know that many public places actually have prayer facilities are actually I don't know about Ireland, but in Britain okay, I even went to the town hall you know, Boris Johnson town hall and they've even got it's not called the town was called City Hall right City Hall. You know, that funny shaped building in London. And then they actually have a prayer of when you know as Muslims we just weren't just

asked, okay, it might not be like that in Ireland, okay. But it can become like that. Okay. If you as Muslims, if we

Muslims, as people who pay taxes who contribute to society? Yeah, who are citizens, actually ask people, don't be embarrassed to say to people, you know, if you don't mind, you have somewhere a quiet place where I could pray, believe me, if enough Muslims say that enough times, eventually they'll even make a room, they'll set a room aside for that prep.

And even if they didn't do that, we have to put Allah first. So

listen to also lectures about the importance of Salah read about the importance of Salah check, if you're keeping the right sort of company, we mentioned that hold yourself up to up to the white standard, you know, the five prayers have got to be non negotiable in our lives. They, you know, if you look at any area of your life in which you're really successful, it's probably because that thing that you're successful at, became a complete must for you. Right? non negotiable must. And that's why you're successful in that area. So in the same way, you need to make Salah a non negotiable must.

If you don't know how to pray, perhaps this is what's stopping you. Right? You don't actually know how to pray you forgotten how to pray, nobody really taught you how to pray. So you know, in sha Allah, Allah will only hold you responsible for what you know.

So if you are unable to until now, now is the time to go to some sisters who do know how to pray, to spend an evening ask asking them, ask them to spend an evening with you going through the Salah, or enroll into a course or go online, you can go to the website, Muslim now.org. And there are videos that teach you about salah the best thing is to have a real person who kind of goes through with you. And stop praying make a commitment to stop praying, even if it's only doing the postures and saying a few words of remembrance because you don't know anything else.

Okay, join a Quran reading class as well. So that's really for the people who got mostly A's. For the people who got mostly B's. I'll say that

a person in that category is sinking.

And really needs to make changes because that person is kind of on the verge and on the edge of falling into major sins once in a while, which is bad enough and heading for Allah's wrath. Okay. So, as you can see, this workshop is not about sugarcoating things. We're just really, sometimes we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves in order to change. So your attitude towards the life you mainly got B's needs to change. Okay, perhaps you're looking at it as something that's just an extra just to something you do when it's convenient. It's not like that. You need to plan your life around the salon, not just fit the Salah in when it's convenient. Yeah, in fact, there'll be times

when it's inconvenient. As one of the brothers in our office, he was saying that he used to get annoyed when people for prayer used to knock in the middle of a meeting and say, you know, this is a Muslim organization, obviously. And they used to say, you know, come come for prayer, and he was thinking well, you know, we've got time Why don't just wait for the meeting to finish and then interrupt us right? But then he realized that no, Salah is meant to be an interruption. Do you see the Salah is actually meant to interrupt the wherever you're engrossed within your day is meant to say stop. And you see that really evidently, when you see a child for example, your children playing

computer games or watching something or Yeah, and you tell them to pray. It's like, how can we just completely stop, but it's something we need to train them with as well. The ability to press pause for the sake of Allah, pause your day. Go make we do pray. Give yourself to Allah in what he has asked you to do and then return to that thing that you were doing. Right So Salah is meant to be an interruption. Sometimes it will be inconvenient, but in the long term, it's giving you something much more

read about the punishments for missing the salah. You sometimes we need to read these verses of the Quran.

Wait for way too little mousseline, Allah says, for way too little mousseline, a Levina, whom Ancelotti himself one row to the mausoleum, and some scholars said while is an actual place in the hellfire,

that place is for the mausoleum, not for them saline sorry for the mousseline, who Alladhina, Han Ancelotti himself, who are neglectful of their press. So they pray but then neglectful of their press. They have a special place in the hellfire.

Alladhina Homura goon who only

I pray in order to show off to show people, right, they don't really pray seriously for the sake of Allah.

So you're in a really deep in a dangerous zone and

realize that this is actually probably affecting other areas of your life.

Check if you're keeping the right sort of company, again, you have companions are really important. If their attitude towards Salah is lacks, probably that's going to rub off on you make friends with people who established the prayer seriously, friends who stop you from praying are no friends in reality, you know, because they're not helping you with your spiritual well being. Hold yourself up to a higher standard again, the five prayers have got to be non negotiable.

And again, you've got to attend some sort of class in order to be able to read the Quran fluently, the more you practice, and the more you read the Quran, even if you just spend 15 minutes a day, however slow you are, just spend 15 minutes a day, you'll see your fluency increase. Or if you don't know how to read, learn how to read. It seems like a huge mountain at the moment. But believe me, if you just make your intention and go for it, you will be on that mountain, you'll be at the top of that mountain very soon.

So that's where people who mostly got these mostly C's, I'll say that

you're working hard to give us a lot to do, right? Okay, you're struggling hard. But again, you're in danger of slipping into major sins, when you start thinking that, you know, if I'm too embarrassed to pray in public, even when the time is running out, you see, the time is very important for Salah.

It's not acceptable to just gather up all your prayers and pray them at the end of the day. That's not acceptable. You have to pray within the prayer times.

So what you need to do is change that attitude again, okay, you might not be missing Salah completely, but you have a very relaxed attitude towards prayer times. And when you get into a bit of difficulty, you'd rather delay the prayer then pray on time, you know, this idea of combining the prayers, etc.

It's not really meant to be for, you know, oh, I was out and about and I was just a little bit inconvenient. It's not meant to be for situations like that. It's supposed to be for really serious difficulties, that you combined the press, right? Not just arbitrary, you know, I but to miss it. So I'll just combine, it's not like that. Not meant to be like that.

Okay, and it also seems that if you mostly got C's that you might be a bit embarrassed by praying in public, or you might be seeing something not to do in front of others. But really realize that people all the time they asking for cigarette breaks, right? And they have their own, have a right to pray. You know, that's part of the law really in Europe. So you have a right to ask people at work or people at college to allow you to pray. Learn the meaning of the Salah, learn some Arabic or at least go through the meaning of the words of Salah, a translation. Perhaps attend a course on the fifth of Salah so that you realize which things which aspects of Salah are absolutely essential.

Okay, and increase the number of Sunnah prayers, you pray, because the Salah prayers, the extra prayers that we pray apart from the fourth part from the obligatory they actually help protect the obligatory prayers

and if you've got mostly DS then I'd say that mashallah you're quite a diligent person with regards to your prayers, you plan your day around the salah carefully you realize the importance of praying on time and the best time to pray is at the earliest time as we know you strive to pray with concentration. Now what you could do to take your Salah to the next level is attend again a course or some class about the fact of Salah fifth is the laws and the rulings to do with czar right

start praying more of your Sunnah prayers the extra prayers so that's like to two units before Fajr four units before the two units after the two units after March of two units after Isha pray the night prayer whenever you can make it a habit preferably in the last third and keep increasing on those you know so if you start off with one of the Sunnah prayers, then stop praying to and start praying three, just have that program of continuous improvement. Okay, and inshallah what I will do is leave you with this thought

and this is with regards to the Sunnah prayers the reason why I've been emphasizing the extra prayers, apart from the five daily prayers that if you're you've already established the five let's move on now to actually it's

establishing the Sunnah prayers if we haven't already is that one of the humbly scholars Elijah, he said, but the likeness of faith, your Eman okay your faith is like a city with five fortresses. So like five layers around it Okay. The first fortress right in the middle is of gold, the second is of silver, the third is of iron, the fourth is of baked bricks and the fifth is of unbaked bricks. So long as the people of the city continue to defend the fortress of unbaked bricks on the outside the enemy will not be able to get to the next layer and then they will not be able to get to the next layer etcetera, right. So he said but if if you start neglecting the outer layer, then the enemy

will penetrate and go to the next layer, you neglect that layer, they will penetrate to the next layer.

So he said

faith is also defended. Your EMR is also defended by five fortresses. And those five fortresses are

in the middle right in the middle is your opinion, your certainty and your faith in Allah.

The second fortress is sincerity, your sense of sincerity and doing things only for the sake of Allah. The third layer the third fortress is fulfilling and carrying out your obligations meaning the fourth obligatory the five daily prayers for example. Okay, so that's the third layer. The fourth layer is doing the Sunnah acts, so doing the extra things see

because like I said, that protects you from that protects your fourth press from being harmed when you start doing the similar press. And the fifth he said is your manners and your etiquette guarding your manners and etiquette. Okay, so

he said as long as one is mindful of your his manners and etiquette, the devil can't penetrate to the next level. Okay. And then, if the devil penetrates to the next level, he craves the Sunnah x, and then the obligatory x and then the sincerity and then ultimately the certainty and your pain, the image that you have in your heart, okay? And this is why you see that many of the scholars of the past when the person did not pray this from the prayers, they would not regard them as a pious person.

You know, that really tells you doesn't it? panela if we're even neglecting our five prayers, where does that place us?

So inshallah my sisters I hope that that was useful exercise, you know, might have been an eye opening exercise for some of us.

It definitely made me really take a fresh look at my salah in certain areas, definitely. So I hope that we will take that away with us and make our own plan of action. Okay, based on some of the advice that I gave,

and if you want you can talk to me afterwards if you've got a particular issue you want to talk about with your Salah and Sharla with that I will finish Subhana Allah Morbihan